House of the Week | Severna Park estate for $19.5 million

View Photo Gallery: The Washington Post’s picks of distinguished homes on the D.C. area market.

We recognize that this week’s featured home in Severna Park is not for everyone and anticipate that there might be a few peevish comments from some of our gentle readers upset with us for showcasing homes that are affordable only to the 1 percenters.

Nonetheless, we bravely plunge ahead because we enjoy looking at beautiful homes and suspect more than a few of you do as well.

Located on the banks of the Severn River, this 20-acre estate offers not only 900 feet of waterfront but also wooded seclusion.

“The minute you enter the gates, it’s like you are on your own very special private retreat,” said Dave DeSantis of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty. He and Maria-Victoria Checa are co-listing agents on the property. “The grounds are beautiful and the house is really well situated to take advantage of the view, but it is also very private.”

The 22,000-square-foot home is reminiscent of a French chateau. Among the European touches in the house are the hand-carved front doors from an estate in France. The 18th-century limestone mantel in the living room also comes from France, as does the 19th-century walnut cabinet that surrounds the fireplace in the music room. Italian marble counters grace the double vanities in the master bathroom. The lower-level fireplace mantel was imported from England, and the bar area is a replica of an English pub.

Yet for all its old world elegance, the home, built in 2002, is also very 21st century. Former AOL executive Martin Fisher, who along with his wife, Georgia, own the house, outfitted it with the latest technologies.

“This house has every conceivable technological gadget in terms of home maintenance and running your whole house from an iPad or computer,” DeSantis said.

For the nautically inclined, there is a 350-foot pier with six boat slips and two boatlifts. And because the estate is situated near where the Severn River opens into the Chesapeake Bay, the water depth makes it accessible not only to large powerboats but also sailboats with significant keels.

The six-bedroom main house has a wine cellar, fitness room with sauna, a movie screening room that seats 15 and an elevator. There’s also a 6,000-square-foot pool house with three bedrooms and a caterer’s kitchen and a three-car garage with an apartment on the second level.